


A Witch's Mausoleum

by GrimHeaperr



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Auras, Blood, Established Relationship, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Ghost Hunting AU, Ghosts, Limbo, Magic, Major Character Injury, Scars, established sheith, gkVHFF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 03:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12312618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrimHeaperr/pseuds/GrimHeaperr
Summary: The P.I.C are sent to investigate a haunted mausoleum. Keith meets the ghost of a witch.(A sort-of epilogue toBlack Manor.)





	A Witch's Mausoleum

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for my [fic-fest](http://grimkohai.tumblr.com/post/165375632444/hello-everyone-october-is-hands-down-my-favorite)! It's a ficlet set in the same universe as [Black Manor](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11986641/chapters/27115095). Just something quick;; I just love my own au lol.
> 
> I tried writing it so newcomers can read it for funsies but like... you should read Black Manor if you're looking for a fic that's similar to this LOL

Dead leaves crunched under their feet as the Paranormal Investigation Club made their way up the steep hill. Lance and Shiro carried their thermal and night vision camera, Pidge and Hunk carried the club's portable charger, various chargers, and their laptops while Pidge had the electric thermometer in the mesh of her bag, and Keith carried the club's normal camcorder, audio recording devices, his spirit box and a first aid kit that included sage and a water bottle of holy water. Just above their horizon line sat a grey, rusted wrought-iron fence. In an arch above the gate entrance, a sign read "GARRISON CEMENTARY," and underneath it was a quote that read "MAY PEACE FIND THEM IN DEATH -- 1802." When the group got to the top, Keith pushed open the gate entrance and it squeaked loudly from the movement.

Once in the cemetery, Keith clicked on the camcorder and started recording. 

The group walked past him as he panned over the worn graves, the dead grass that mixed with dirt and desert sand, and almost bare trees. The wind tousled his hair gently. Pidge came into frame, waving to get Keith’s attention. He focused the camera on her.

"Hello everyone! Mystery Crew back at it again, except this time it isn’t somewhere lame.”

“My lead was not lame,” Lance defended.

 “An abandoned ice cream parlor wasn’t lame at first,” Pidge said as she pushed up her glasses, “Long story short, we scared the shit out of the homeless man that lived there.”

 “We’re going to have to bleep that out,” Hunk said. It was a pain whenever any of them cussed because they did it often, especially when something happened, but his pleas to refrain from cussing in a casual conversation had fallen on deaf ears.

Pidge responded by saying every curse she could think of.

 Keith continued past them and followed behind Shiro.

“What do you think of this case, Keith?” he asked but didn’t turn toward Keith.

A twig snapped underneath Keith’s shoe and he heard Hunk and Lance shout. “I think it has some credibility,” Keith thought about the group of girls that came in that showed him their various scratches and muffled recordings. “It’s worth checking out, I think. The last time Pidge and I came here was because of a child spirit.”

“Are they still here?”

Keith kept the camera straight as he turned his head. His purple eyes traced the stone bench on the far side of the graveyard, then to the small, eroded grey marble gravestone a foot away from the bench. The dead leaves rustled on the ground in front of the forgotten grave, and the flowers Keith had put on the grave last week were already gone.

“No. He passed on.”

The crew continued down the long path to the edge of the graveyard as the sun sank behind the horizon, the cool hues of night painting the sky. The mausoleum the P.I.C. was investigating stood slightly crooked on the desert earth. Dried brush outlined the foundation and the pillars were cracked but not chipped. Vines grew their way to the roof and scratched the building when the wind picked up. The dark grey of the mausoleum made Keith nervous, and its open entrance was unsettling.

He doesn’t remember it being open when he came last week. It had been closed.

“An open entrance?” Pidge said from beside him.

“Seem like it,” Shiro said.

“This kinda makes me feel like Scooby Doo. A cool breeze. A deserted graveyard. Dead leaves. Bare trees. Fall. Anyone else getting Scooby Doo vibes?” Lance rambled. 

“You say that every time, Lance,” Hunk said.

"Yeah, but think about it. We’re ghost hunters. They’re kinda like monsters right?”

“You’re forgetting that the monsters aren’t real monsters. They’re people in a mask,” Pidge said.

“I know that,” Lance huffed as they stopped a few feet away from the steps of the mausoleum, “Keith does the unmasking.”

“You can’t unmask a ghost,” Keith said flatly.

Pidge sniggered.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, you help ghosts crossover, man. It’s kinda like unmasking the bad guys.” 

“Sounds poetic,” Shiro said. Keith rolled his eyes and Shiro gave Keith a small smile.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Lance exclaimed. “Unmasking the villains is probably some big metaphor, like, the true horrors aren’t imaginary, they’re real.”

“Lance please,” Hunk said in a small voice, “I don’t really want to think about that right now.”

_I don’t either,_ Keith thought to himself.

“If we’re the Mystery Crew, then who’s who?” Lance put a finger to his chin, tapping thoughtfully.

“I already call Keith Fred,” Pidge said, motioning for Lance to give her the thermal camera. He passed it to her.

“If he's Fred, then does that make Shiro Daphne?" Lance asked. Pidge laughed from behind Keith. Keith ignored them both.

"It would make sense since they're dating," Hunk commented as he panned the camera slowly across the graveyard. A cool wind blew and rustled the fallen leaves. "That would probably mean Pidge is Velma."

Pidge adjusted her glasses then, a little defensively. "Considering I'm the smartest one here, that'd make sense."

"Daphne's pretty smart," Shiro said as he walked hand-in-hand with Keith toward the decrypted mausoleum. He could tell Keith was already looking at someone. "She's pretty resourceful in the original series, not too sure about the new stuff though."

"We need to marathon Scooby-Doo for the pre-investigation ritual."

Keith watched as a barely-there figure beckoned him toward the mausoleum. He didn't have a bad feeling but his skin crawled with nerves. He wondered if the apparition was caught on tape.

"I think Hunk would be Shaggy," Pidge suggested. A twig snapped underneath her shoe. No one saw Keith startle, but Shiro squeezed his hand.

"I would totally be Shaggy! He's tall, I'm tall," Lance reasoned.

"Hunk can actually cook though," Pidge defended her reasoning. Pidge and Keith's diet went from fast food and snacks to "meal prepped meals" a la Hunk. Keith had cried from the sentiment. "I think you'd make a good Scooby." 

The figure appeared again, but Keith couldn’t make out its body. The dark apparition against the grey of the inside was stark, and he watched is it crook its finger toward Keith again. He watched it descend and disappear into the darkness of the mausoleum.

Lance thought about it. "That means I'm the main character," he boasted with a smirk on his face. Hunk and Pidge rolled their eyes as Shiro chuckled.

“Can we focus, please?” Keith said, an edge in his voice. The group looked at him. Lance gave him the side eye before he noticed the tenseness of Keith’s shoulders.

After he said that, the group started to pull out equipment. Pidge had their thermal camera ready, and Lance juggled to get the night vision camera from its case while not dropping the case to the ground. Hunk pulled out the club’s voice recorders from Keith's bag, silently handing one to Keith and keeping the other while Shiro readied two flashlights with a new set of batteries.

Keith stopped the recording and clicked off the video camera. He traded it for the night vision camera and took the first step into the mausoleum. 

Inside, the heat made the cool air of the tomb humid. The walls were warm and the ground scattered with pebbles, leaves and various dead bugs. Keith adjusted the settings of the camera until he got a visual of the inner chamber entrance and hit record.

“Okay,” Keith said, mostly to himself, “We’re in the mausoleum. It’s humid, and currently,” he walked forward, kicking pebbles as he went, “The front room is empty.” He panned the camera around the room to look for a shadow or mist, but nothing showed up and he couldn't see anything. The room felt empty. The mausoleum felt empty.

"Current temperature is eighty-one degrees," Pidge said.

Hunk turned on the voice recorder while Lance and Pidge walked inside. Shiro stood beside Keith. He looked around, the humidity making a bead of sweat roll down his face. His arm felt numb, but it was something he was used to already, or at least, that what he told himself.

“Do you see anything?” he asked softly. He put his right hand on the small of Keith’s back and rubbed circles into the cotton fabric.

“I don’t, but I definitely saw something earlier,” Keith said. He heard Lance curse and immediately whipped around. His heart started to beat faster, but when he saw Lance rubbing his shoulder and muttering something about the wall under his breath, Keith huffed and turned back around.

"The noise was Lance bumping his shoulder," he documented.

“What did you see?” Hunk asked, his curiosity for the supernatural overriding his instinctual fear of it.

“I saw a black figure call me in here.”

Keith walked forward, his shoes slightly echoing in the room. When he got to the next room, the temperature changed. He shivered and it cause the camera he held to shake.

“It’s colder in the second room,” he commented.

He panned the camera, and when his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could pick up the outlines of what the camera caught.

Two concrete coffins sat parallel in the room. They took up most of the room, allowing for a single person to walk between them and between the coffins and the wall. The slab that covered the coffin on the right was covered in paw prints, hand prints, dead bugs, and leaves. The one of the left was cracked; the concrete that made up the sides were chipped and a few of its fragments littered the floor. The slab that covered it was slightly moved, a corner exposed. As Keith got closer, a millipede crawled out from inside.

Lance made a disgusted sound.

"Current temperature is seventy-one."

“Is there anyone in here with us?” Shiro asked.

They waited in silence before something shoved Keith forward.

“Keith!” Shiro reached to grab his arm but a hard shove to his back sent him forward too.

Lance scrambled toward them, getting the camera from Keith and refocusing it on the twp investigators.

“What happened?” Lance asked.

Keith wiped the side of his face with his hand to brush the pebbles off of his face. Shiro did the same and when he was done he started to inspect Keith for head injuries. It wasn’t that long ago Keith was released from the hospital because of a concussion.

“Something shoved my shoulder,” Keith said, swatting Shiro’s hand away, “Shiro, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he said, worry still laced in Shiro’s voice. 

“Hunk, play back the recording,” Pidge said, rewinding the thermal camera footage already. 

“Got it.”

Hunk stopped the recording and hit the fast-forward button until he thought was when they entered.

“It’s colder in the second room,” Keith’s voice said. A moment after, Keith strained to hear the rest. Their footsteps were muffled by the sound of feedback. Keith and Pidge furrowed their eyebrows.

"Current temperature is seventy-one."

“Is there anyone in here with us?” Shiro’s voice was distorted, the feedback making the sound high-pitched and electronic. The voice recorder let out an ear-splitting screech before it cut out, the words _Leave this place_ sending a chill through the room. 

“Well,” Hunk started as the voice recorder went dead in his hands, “Let’s not disobey the scary voice.” He pivoted on his foot and before he could even take a step, Pidge grabbed the denim of his vest in her small fist. 

“Guys I got something.”

Lance walked over with the camera, adjusting it to capture the thermal camera’s screen. Shiro and Keith joined them after they made sure each other was okay.

“Look,” Pidge used her fingernail to point out a flash of blue on Keith’s shoulder before he fell, “That flash of blue, right,” she rewound the footage again and stopped it just before the flash of blue completely disappeared, “there.”

“That’s crazy,” Lance said, in awe.

Shiro squeezed Keith’s shoulder.

“I don’t feel a presence in here, though,” Keith said.

Lance turned the camera back toward him, seeing Shiro and Keith in the frame. Keith closed his eyes, taking in a depth, long breath. He reached out into the room, feeling the auras of Lance, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk. He could even feel is own aura sliding across the floor, slinking up the coffins and back down. There was _something_ in the room, but it was too faint, too small to pinpoint exactly what it was.

“Did you find anything?” Pidge asked, her eyes strained to see Keith’s outline in the dying light from outside.

“I’m not sure. There’s definitely…” Keith felt a could touch drag across his arm, “Something here.” The feeling dragged down his legs and a cracked resonated in the room.

“What was that?” Hunk asked, voice shaking.

From beneath Keith, the floor started to crack slowly, deliberately. Keith felt his left foot sink in.

“Guys, back up.”

“What?”

“Back up,” he stressed as his ankle sank through the floor, the concrete cutting into his ankle through his jeans. He pushed Shiro, the man bumping into Lance as the floor collapsed beneath Keith.

Keith remembered the fall, but he didn’t remember his body slamming into broken concrete.

 

 

Keith groaned as he sat up, the pain in his head momentarily made him immobilized. He could feel someone poking at him, at his aura, trying to make him open his eyes. He rode the pain out as he gritted his teeth. Keith wiggled his toes, his fingers before he slowly turned onto his side. He painfully put his weight on his hands as he pushed himself up.

A hand was gently placed on his shoulder.

Keith opened his eyes and met bright amber eyes and dull purple hair.

“You’re alive,” she said, her concerned face turned into a relieved expression, “You gave me a fright when you fell.”

Keith looked around in the empty space; it wasn't completely white, nor was it black. It held the faintest purple colors, almost a sickly green, and had no noticeable features.

“Where..." he clutched his head as pain pulsed at his bloody temple, “am I?”

“You’re in my home.”

Keith didn’t know what she meant. When he opened his eyes again, the empty space was filled. A crowded cabin filled the space and the floor beneath him was no longer cold but warm and fuzzy. He moved his other hand from the as he turned his body to look around. 

The cabin was in disarray. Dishes littered the single table and countertop, in the dripping sink and atop the brown stove. A wooden fridge sat next to a cracked cabinet. Various pictures hung crooked on the wall with various papers, drawings, and floral décor filling the empty space between the cracked frames. The single bed was covered in a mountain of fabric and shoes. The ceiling had that shook the rafter. The final thing he noticed was that the room had no windows or doors.

“My name is Honerva, Keith.”

Keith turned to her, fear seizing his heart.

“And I’m guessing you’re thinking of a way out,” she said as she left him on the floor to go to her kitchen. She waved her hand over the dishes and Keith watched in awe as they floated into the air. Honerva snapped her fingers and a sponge appeared to clean the dishes as she opened her fridge. “There isn’t one,” she said solemnly, “This may be limbo, maybe my own personal hell -- I’m not sure.”

Keith watched as she gazed toward the far wall and sighed.

“It’s been awfully lonely, and I’m not sure how I got here. I was hoping you could help.”

_Oh great._

She laughed, a little bitter. “I’m sure once you help me, you’ll find a way out. And here,” she snapped her fingers again and Keith screamed as he felt a flash of pain cut through him. As quick as it came it was gone and left him to cough out blood onto the carpet. It disappeared on contact.

“Your head should be fine now. It was bleeding internally and your right eye was blood red, but it’s gone now.”

Keith wiped a hand over his face and touched his fingers to his temple. The blood was gone and he could no longer feel the throbbing pain.

He didn’t know what to say.

“Thanks,” it came out more as a question as he stood up and leaned against the single counter for support, “What do you need help with exactly?”

The sponge ceased its cleaning as Honerva waved her hand and rinsed them with water before a gust of wind whipped around the cabin. It tousled Keith’s hair violently and when he pushed his black hair away from his face, the dishes stacked themselves neatly in the cabinet. He watched with subtle interest.

“Do you know what I am?” she asked nonchalantly as the smell of food filled the air.

Keith looked at her carefully. There were faint marks underneath her eyes, and her olive skin was littered with burn scars and scratches. A dark ring circled her neck.

“A witch,” Keith said, piecing the pieces together.

Honerva hummed. “Correct. You’re very smart, Keith.”

“I’m just observant,” he said as Honerva stirred whatever she put in the pot, “And something tells me you… were killed.”

She didn’t say anything and Keith could feel her black aura lash out. The cabin felt suffocating as she began to talk.

“Yes,” she said bitterly, “They came into my home, tore my baby from my arms, and dragged me into town. They knocked out my husband. I was so alone.”

The temperature in the cabin became hot, so hot that Keith began to sweat. He could smell burning wood and… flesh. Keith felt his skin crawl as the smell got stronger.

“They tied me to the cross because, because some girl told the Minister about my talents, talents she sought out,” a glass popped, a shard stabbing Keith’s forearm. He hissed as it dug in and bit the inside of his cheek as he pulled it out, “She used me! That jealous, pious, insolent –“

A screeching noise cut through the cabin as Honerva screamed. Keith scrunched his face as he covered his ears. Honerva was changing; her dull purple hair turning metallic and her skin turning to an ashen state.

Despite himself, Keith walked toward her, calling her name as loud as he could. He reached out to touch her, and when his hand made contact with her shoulder, she stopped her screams. The cabin had warped, the items twisted and bulged, but Honerva came to her senses.

Blood dripped from her nose as she took in her surroundings, then she finally looked at Keith. A look of recognition crossed her face and Keith watched as the first tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh, Keith!” she sniffled as she stepped away, “I’m fine, I’m… thank you for bringing me back.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

She waved a hand and told him to stop being modest. “I know you did. It’s been too long look,” she gestured to his clothes, his shoes, then to her purple velvet dress, “Time has changed and the ones I seek are no longer amongst the living, correct?” 

Keith looked at her, his gaze a mix between fear and awe. “Yes,” he responded as he scratched at his new wound, “They would be dead.”

“Even my husband and son?”

Keith nodded and Honerva sighed, shoulders drooped.

“Yet I am stuck in limbo.”

“I think you have to let go, Honerva,” Keith said carefully and she cut him a quizzical look, “You don’t have to forgive, but… I think if you want to pass over, to see them again, you would have to let go.”

The cabin was silent as she thought about it. Honerva looked at him, to her walls, to her stove. She thought about the Minister and his daughter, the people of her church and the image of her baby boy and doting husband. She even thought of the black stray cat she used to feed on the back doorstep of their manor and wondered if her husband continued to feed him after she had died. She would have to ask him.

Honerva turned her attention toward Keith and held her hand out.

“Will you help me cross over, Keith?”

Keith hesitated, but he stuck his hand out. Honvera clasped their hands together, the black of her aura mingling with his red. 

They concentrated in the silence. Honerva’s hand was cold and rubbery, but it felt warm the tighter she latched onto Keith’s spirit. Keith could feel the floor disappear underneath his feet, and the warmth of the cabin was replaced with the empty feeling he had felt in the space and in the mausoleum. Honerva slipped her hand from Keith’s as she disappeared in a dull purple haze. 

Keith felt something hard dig into his back and the sound of his name echoing in his ears. He squinted as a light flooded his dark eyelids. He lifted a hand to block the light and groaned as he opened his eyes.

“Oh man, he’s alright!” Lance’s voice was flooded with relief.

Shiro dropped down and made his toward his boyfriend.

“Keith, don’t sit up yet,” he instructed as he made his way over. 

Keith nodded, his brain feeling like it was shaking in his skull as he did so. The pain was back tenfold, and he could feel something wet and sticky inside of his glove. His vision was spotted.

Shiro wiped Keith’s hair from away from his forehead, his fingers dancing carefully around Keith’s head for any sign of injury.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, pressing lightly on Keith’s temple. Keith winced in response. “I’m sorry, baby, here, slowly,” Shiro assisted Keith in getting up, supporting his head as Keith got up on his feet.

“Hunk, help them out!” Pidge said, voice almost panicked.

Lance turned the camera to Hunk as he shoved off his backpack, kneeling down and stretching an arm out to where Shiro was walking Keith to.

“I’ll pick him up, Hunk. Grab him by his arms and mind his head.”

Hunk pulled Keith up as Shiro guided his boyfriend upward, hands on his waist as he lifted Keith up. When Hunk had a good grip on Keith’s arms, Shiro moved his hands down Keith’s legs and pushed them up. Hunk cradled Keith as Shiro hoisted himself over the crumbling edge. 

“We need to get him to a hospital,” Shiro said.

The Paranormal Investigation Club left the mausoleum. Lance and Pidge shot the outro for the video and promised that the next clip would have Keith’s testimony on what happened. Shiro and Hunk walked Keith to Shiro’s car. Shiro reclined the passenger seat and helped Keith into it, Keith groaning as Shiro buckled him in.

“We’ll meet you there, man,” Lance promised as they put their equipment in Hunk’s jeep.

“Thanks,” Shiro said, voice strained. Keith needs to go to the hospital as soon as possible.

Pidge opened the back door behind the driver’s side and got in.

Keith turned to her, eyes unfocused. 

“Her name was Honerva,” he said as Shiro got in and started the car, “She was stuck in,” he gasped as pain shot up his arm, “In limbo. She was a witch and..." he tried remembering, the sentence on the tip of his tongue, "She was burned."

Pidge wrote down what he said on her phone, syncing the note to her laptop.

"Are you okay, though?" she asked, clearly worried.

Keith nodded before he sighed.

"Why is it always me?"

Pidge chuckled light-heartedly as Shiro placed a hand on Keith's knee.

"I ask myself the same question, baby."

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Mistakes are my own  
> 2\. *shows up late to my own fic-fest*
> 
> This was fun to write! I didn't want to make Honerva a villain... I did initially but I changed my mind as I was writing it...
> 
> You can reblog/like this fic [here](http://grimkohai.tumblr.com/post/166207227589/a-witchs-mausoleum)!


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